Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The federal government has agreed to settle for $3 million a long-running suit in federal district court in Washington that alleged a former CIA officer and a State Department official unlawfully eavesdropped on a drug enforcement agent in Burma.

The terms of the agreement were detailed in court papers filed Tuesday night in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit, filed by former DEA agent Richard Horn, was filed in federal court in 1994. The litigation had been under seal until this summer.
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Former CIA officer Arthur Brown’s lawyer, Robert Salerno, a partner in the Washington offices of Morrison & Foerster, said in a statement today: "Art Brown did not do whatever Horn imagines happened back in 1993, and the settlement agreement does not contain any admissions or otherwise validate Horn’s bizarre allegations." Former State Department official Franklin Huddle’s counsel, Donald Remy, a partner in Washington with Latham & Watkins, was not reached for comment this morning. The Justice Department has been paying the legal bills for the defendants, who were sued in their individual capacity. The settlement agreement said the government does not admit liability.